User:Juliawwweaver/gap analysis

Gap analysis

 * What is the title of the article in which you identified a gap. If no article exists at all, what should the title be?

Micha Cárdenas, though she prefers her name to be in all lowercase.


 * Document the gap you found, describe how you identified it, and analyze its impact on knowledge.

As I searched for transgender artists (which there are few of on Wikipedia in its entirety) I came across micha cárdenas, a local artist who intrigued me. The wiki-article itself gave nothing but vague descriptions of her artworks and relatively no context of her personal history other than the institutions which she has worked within. The meanings of her artwork is also specifically left out. Many of her art works explore topics of gender-non conformity, anti-racism, diaspora, and hacktivism. Her Wikipedia page is more of a general, outdated, list of projects she has been on and fails to give any context or meanings to those works. Many of her artworks are view-able and accessible so I fail to understand as to why well written summaries are left out of them. The failing to include specifics of her works surrounding the experiences of trans people of color is something that signifies a gap due to disadvantage. cárdenas’s and her work is highly accessible. I personally became very interested in bridging this gap of knowledge for myself and easily contacted her for an interview through Skype. I asked her what gaps she personally desired to fill on her own Wikipedia page and she told me she would like to update the page on one of her most recent works called Unstoppable which centers trans of color poetics and to update the page to reflect her recent position as an assistant professor at the University of Washington in Bothell.


 * Propose a paragraph of new or substantially edited content based on reliable sources. (If you are editing existing content, post the current version along with your edited version, and clearly mark which is which.)

micha cárdenas’ teaching regards many different modes of injustice through the lens of art. Her focus includes speculative media, science fiction, speculative design, speculative art, performance, electronics, wearable electronics, new media art, gender studies, transgender studies, queer and feminist theory, performance studies, theories of social change, practice-based research, praxis, public scholarship, poetics, decolonization, border studies. She is now an Assistant Professor of Interactive Media Design at the University of Washington. Her most recent practice-based research project, Unstoppable, focuses on the movement trans of color subjects in digital media, where movement includes performance, urban mobility and transnational migration. Trans women of color, who continue to be the number one target of violence among LGBT people, have learned through experiences of violence to shift their visibility based on their needs at any given moment. I argue that this shifting, made perceptible in science fiction and speculative art, is a material and conceptual operation that allows trans women of color to navigate the violence of necropolitical regimes, but this shifting is also used by those same regimes of power. Her work was also included in the "HIV Among Trans Women of Color" taking place on Oct. 15 – Jan.10 at the Tacoma Art Museum in 2015. Much of her current work builds upon her previous endeavors, such as Becoming Dragon, a piece where cárdenas spent 365 hours on the online avatar chat room Second Life with a goal of answering the question of whether the requirement that transgender people spend one year living as an alternative sex before gender reassignment surgery could be supplanted with living for a year in a virtual world. She states "The real life requirement is about dealing with the hardships, rejections and bias that transgender people experience." Her Hacktivism as well greatly influences her teaching. She explores and dismantles the politics surrounding trans of color existence. I had been doing what I would call hacking since I was a teenager. For me, hacking was always political.


 * List the reliable sources that could be used to improve this gap. (You can use the Cite tool from the editing toolbar above to input and format your sources.)


 * Hoetger, Megan. "Review: Virus.circus.probe. Performed by Micha Cardenas and Elle Mehrmand at GUTTED. Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE). Hollywood, CA. 19 January 2011." Junctures: The Journal for Thematic Dialogue 15 (2012): 33+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.


 * ""Art AIDS America" to Open at Tacoma Art Museum." University WireOct 02 2015. ProQuest. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.


 * LaFee, Scott. "Online-world immersion probes 'possibilities of transformation'." San Diego Union-Tribune, The (CA) 21 Dec. 2008, FINAL, ENTERTAINMENT: E-1. NewsBank. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.


 * Tanczer, Leonie. "Hacking the Label: Hacktivism, Race, and Gender - Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology." A Journal of Gender New Media and Technology. Ada, 04 Jan. 2015. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.


 * Cárdenas, Micha. "Micha Cárdenas." UWB - Faculty and Staff. University of Washington, n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.